Safaricom board director Michael Joseph has resigned effective August 1, the company announced in a press release Tuesday.
Mr Joseph has also served in various capacities in the company since 2000—serving as a general manager, twice as a chief executive officer and once as a chairman of the board.
He is credited with the launch of mobile money platform M-Pesa and taking the telecommunication company public in June 2008. The company also credited him with being behind the Safaricom and M-Pesa Foundations, which support various education, health, culture and conservation projects in Kenya.
“It is the deep foundation and connections with the communities that Michael developed that led to the phenomenal growth, development of innovative products and services, ensuring Safaricom became embedded in every bit of our society,” the company said in the press release.
“He has been integral to the important advances that Safaricom has made over the years, including the issuance of Safaricom’s first Bond, the initial public offer in 2007 and the branching out into Ethiopia.”
Mr Joseph was the founding chief executive officer of the company, and Safaricom has praised him for “steering the company from a subscriber base of less than 18,000 in 2000 to over 17 million subscribers by his retirement in 2010.”
He was succeeded by Bob Collymore on November 1, 2010, who took over as CEO until his death on July 1, 2019.
Following Mr Collymore’s death, Safaricom Board held a special meeting in which they appointed Mr Joseph the interim CEO effective July 2, 2019. The company later appointed Peter Ndegwa as CEO on April 1, 2020.
Mr Joseph, who joined the Safaricom Board on September 8, 2008 was appointed board chairman on August 1, 2020, taking over from Nicholas Ng’ang’a who had served as the chairman and non-executiv emember since 2007.
Mr Joseph stepped down as board chairman last year with John Ngumi taking over effective August 1, 2022, but remained a board member until his resignation on Tuesday.
When he relinquished his post as board chairman last August, Mr Joseph said he stepped down so that he could “devote more time to Kenya Airways during this critical time to ensure that we continue the work of restructuring and refinancing for KQ”, as well as devote more time for Safaricom’s investments in Ethiopia.
Mr Joseph is also a board chairman of Kenya Airways and sits on boards of other organisations.
